Global Plastic Waste Report

Dhruvin Modh, Sandhya Erland Chandrasekar, Xinyu Wang

Problem Introduction

  • Plastic waste is a growing threat to both land and marine ecosystems.
  • Many countries generate high levels of plastic but lack efficient recycling systems.
  • Coastal regions are especially vulnerable to plastic leakage into oceans.
  • We aim to identify key risk factors and regional disparities in plastic waste patterns.

Dataset Description

Dataset: Plastic Waste Around the World

Coverage: - This dataset includes data for 165 individual countries

Key Variables:

  • Total plastic waste generated (in metric tonnes)

  • Per capita plastic waste (in kilograms)

  • National recycling rate (in percentage)

  • Coastal plastic waste risk level

Source: The dataset is retrieved from a publicly available GitHub repository called Pranu580 that compiles plastic waste statistics from multiple global environmental datasets.

Methods

  • Data cleaning with janitor, filtering missing values
  • Binned recycling rate into Low, Medium, High (using quantiles)
  • Derived population estimates and waste-per-person metrics
  • Grouped by coastal risk and recycling category

Top 10 Countries by Per Capita Waste

Figure Shown: Horizontal bar chart

  • Countries: Iceland, Malta, Cyprus, Palau, etc.
  • High per capita waste in tourist-heavy nations
  • Color-coded by recycling category (green, orange, red)

Waste vs. Recycling Rate

Figure Shown: Horizontal bar chart

  • Scatter plot with linear trend line
  • Weak inverse relationship: more waste often correlates with lower recycling
  • Key insight: High waste ≠ High recycling